EDO4561 - New church room, St Peter's Church, Dorchester; observations and recording 1981

During November and December 1981 construction of the foundations for a new Church room in the NW area of St Peter's Churchyard provided a rare opportunity to examine the archaeology of a prime site in the heart of the old town. The site had been disturbed to a depth of 0.9m by the graveyard but Roman layers remained intact, including the base of the late dark soil. The major feature lay on the north side of the site, beneath the new store room extension for the main hall. Here an E-W aligned section of metalling was exposed for at least 9m along the north side of the building and was at least 2.7m wide, bounded on the south by a 0.6m wide ditch containing 2nd century pottery in its fill. This is interpreted as a major E-W road through the town. Footings for the new building south of the metalling revealed Roman structures. The curving footing for the apsaidal west end revealed a continuation of the metalling cut by a large medieval pit, which also cut a robbed out Roman wall trench 2.5m south of the metalling. A further wall foundation was cut tangentially by the footing for the south wall of the new building. This wall foundation was sealed by later Roman layers. To the south a patch of chalk floor sealed the early roman levels.